Anton Zingarevich has worked out exactly why Reading’s stay in the Barclays
Premier League is nearing an end. According to the club’s owner, the answer
was to spend more money, to confront the spectre of relegation with cash and
until it was replaced by the bonanza from next season’s new broadcast deal.

When you are the son of a Russian billionaire, that tends to be the way you
look at the world — and particularly at football, where the correlation
between expenditure and results is obvious. Your team is struggling? Spend.
Your team is doing fine, as Reading were during the